On this week's episode, we discuss the four-part documentary Shiny Happy People: Secrets of the Duggar Family (Amazon Prime, Freevee). We address sexual scandals, abuses of authority, gender roles, parenting styles, and more. Our guests are Drs. Christy Snider (history) and Michael Papazian (philosophy).
Our conversation delves into the Duggar family's lifestyle, the controversial parenting methods they employ, and the underlying motivations of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. We explore the gender roles within the Duggar family and the cultural implications of purity culture and courtship.
Lastly, we'll discuss the role of media in spreading the evangelical message and the challenges of engaging with religious pluralism in modern society. So grab a seat at our Church Potluck and join us for this fascinating and enlightening discussion!
The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.
On this week's episode, we discuss the four-part documentary Shiny Happy People: Secrets of the Duggar Family (Amazon Prime, Freevee). We address sexual scandals, abuses of authority, gender roles, parenting styles, and more. Our guests are Drs. Christy Snider (history) and Michael Papazian (philosophy).
Our conversation delves into the Duggar family's lifestyle, the controversial parenting methods they employ, and the underlying motivations of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. We explore the gender roles within the Duggar family and the cultural implications of purity culture and courtship.
Lastly, we'll discuss the role of media in spreading the evangelical message and the challenges of engaging with religious pluralism in modern society. So grab a seat at our Church Potluck and join us for this fascinating and enlightening discussion!
The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.
Well, at the moment it looks like God is on our side because the thundering has stopped and even the raining has stopped. You know, we're talking about shiny, happy people. We have a shiny, happy new office, but I'm learning of all the quirks of it for recording. and so, right before the episode, drips, drips, drips, drips coming down. That's better than thunder. That is better than thunder, so we're going to just test just how well this recording equipment does. At one of these days, i'm sure.
Speaker 3:Let's feel more spacious. So I do think you have some more room.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you think so. We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 4:I think last time we were talking about having a studio audience or something That's right, we got a little area over here that we can actually have.
Speaker 1:We can have some students in the class Real, real, real applause. Well, welcome everyone to Church Potluck, where we are serving up a smorgasbord of Christian curiosity. I'm your host, dale McConkie, sociology professor and United Methodist pastor, and you know there are two keys to a good Church Potluck Plenty of variety and engaging conversation. That's exactly what we're trying to do here on Church Potluck Sitting down with friends and sharing our ideas on a variety of topics from a variety of academic disciplines and a variety of Christian traditions. But I want to begin today with an announcement. We have another country to celebrate, so can anybody guess the country? Spain, all right, espana, it's a big one.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Spain. Spain welcome to the podcast. Olá, That makes it. That's right, olá, thank you. Fourteen countries, five continents. We're going to give Antarctica a pass, but I'm looking at you, oceana.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm kind of surprised Australia.
Speaker 1:No, australia, no New.
Speaker 4:Zealand, no. Zealand.
Speaker 1:Yep, so we are. we're not a luck so far, but we welcome Spain to the podcast. Well, let's go ahead and introduce our guests. We've got a two fine guests here for this Church Potluck. Let's begin with Dr Christy Snyder.
Speaker 3:Oh Yeah, So I am a historian at Berry College. I do primarily women's history, American history and my faith tradition I'm going to say today, since it will help explain some of my ignorance, is I am Roman Catholic.
Speaker 1:Okay, got you And also all those are good reasons for you to be on the podcast, but also you are a fan of documentaries and podcasts. I am, yes, and so looking forward to your insights on that. And our other guest, which I guess I'll just say right now, makes number nine.
Speaker 4:I think, yeah, that's right Almost double digits.
Speaker 1:Yes, dr Michael Papasian.
Speaker 4:Thank you. Yeah, and so I'm. yeah, i'm professor of philosophy and I've got a lot of interests in religion and theology, and my, my faith tradition is Armenian, orthodox or apostolic.
Speaker 1:Which is kind of on the other end of the spectrum when it comes to liturgical and I really don't understand evangelicalism.
Speaker 4:Actually I didn't. when I came first came down here, i wrote, i read a book about it, just to figure out what people were Before or after you got here.
Speaker 1:Before So before.
Speaker 4:Not actually, when I got here, when I realized that I'm in a different world religiously- You're not in Kansas or you're not in New Jersey anymore.
Speaker 1:New Jersey anymore.
Speaker 4:But I just wanted to understand the evangelical mindset better And so I wrote, read a few books on that And I think I understand it better?
Speaker 1:Well, this is a question that I often ask students when I find out they're from a different part of the country. What was your biggest culture shock coming down this way Coming?
Speaker 4:down here. Oh wow, there was so much that was shocking, it's hard to.
Speaker 1:Was it really? It was a big. It was a big change for you.
Speaker 4:I was like for a whole month. I was in the days. It was like a different world. I was coming from Virginia, which kind of is Southern, but no, this was a different world. Were you questioning your choice? Yes and no. Yeah, all right, but nothing in particular. I'm glad I'm here, though, okay, and by now I'm acculturated.
Speaker 1:Well, i'm going to say, if you've been here for 25 years, yeah, let's hear it. Y'all All right, there you go. So, and you were only from Chrissy, you were only just from Missouri, so it wasn't as big of a change.
Speaker 3:But in fact even Southern Missouri. So yeah, and the year before I came to Berry, i was at Erie, pennsylvania, teaching, and I would trade the hot summer for waking up with snow in my car any day, right? So yeah, i was happy to be down.
Speaker 1:Well, what are we going to be talking about today? Let's start off with this.
Speaker 2:Are you all coming with the song? I am not. No.
Speaker 1:I heard this as a child, so we are talking about shiny, happy people, the documentary a little faster.
Speaker 2:So is this like a camp song? Yeah, vacation Bible school.
Speaker 1:The secrets of the Duggar family, sexual scandals, abuses of authority, fundamentalist Christianity Are these connected And, if so, how? All right.
Speaker 4:You like that apparently.
Speaker 1:You know what? All right. So since you brought that up, yes, i like shiny, happy music. I like upbeat, positive major keys. The church I studied for my dissertation was very much upbeat kind of praise music, but very simple chords with a little bit of a Hebrew touch to some of the songs as well, which was cool. But I invited one of my graduate students to come, or actually she may have invited herself. She wanted to come and see the church that I was studying And her way of describing the music at the worship service was Christian music meets the Partridge family, and so that's the. I grew up on the Partridge family type of music and so it's still there for me.
Speaker 3:So praise music. It has a drum right. Yes, okay, so that would not be allowed by the Duggers right. So no drum beat, i think.
Speaker 1:That's a great point. That's probably right. So that's right. They were kind of all classical instruments that they were using, good catch. Well, we are going to be talking about the documentary Shiny Happy People The Secrets of the Dugger Family, and it is available on Amazon Prime And I think you can also watch it on Freevy. I think it's also available. And to get into this, i think we were just going to go ahead and do some rapid fire game show also Shiny Happy Music. All right, so rapid fire. One answer to these questions. We'll start off with you. Christy Shiny Happy People The Documentary thumbs up or thumbs down, and why.
Speaker 3:I would say thumbs up because I think even as somebody who didn't watch the show The Duggers, i felt like it did a pretty good job of like introducing me to the show and then kind of the downfall and giving the background history of where their kind of beliefs kind of emerge from.
Speaker 4:Great, michael, yeah, yeah, i would say a thumbs up too. I think it was very well done and it did humanize the, give us a bigger picture about what was going on and all.
Speaker 1:Great. Well, thank you very much. Good answers for both of you. Well done, all right. Next question Who was the villain in the documentary Christy?
Speaker 3:Oh, i would say that had to be Bill Gofford, and probably I'll see The second villain. I'm not sure. Is it Josh Duggar, or is it his parents for not getting him help before it becomes this horrible scandal and actually a crime that he gets charged and then convicted for?
Speaker 1:Right, i will give you, even before Michael gets to answer, good job.
Speaker 4:So I might as well not answer that.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 4:I thought about that too, about whether Josh or the parents were in it. I mean, my sense is that the parents really had. I mean, it was their responsibility to make sure that their children were, their welfare was cared for, and I think that. So I'm sort of even less sympathetic to them.
Speaker 1:Okay, right, we'll give you a good. There we go, and I meant to mention at the outset that we will definitely be having spoilers, but this is a documentary, this is all. It's not like movie unraveling. These are all events that have happened, just recounting them So, but we're not going to hold back on anything. So if you want to watch the documentary first, go ahead and stop it now. All right, so we'll get to start with you on this next question Who is the hero of the documentary?
Speaker 4:Well, i thought so. The who was the daughter who? I forgot her name, jill Jill. I mean, obviously it was very painful for her to go on TV and talk about what happened to her and to her family, so I would, i guess I respect that greatly Great.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, and Kristi.
Speaker 3:So that's a good question. I would say I think yeah, jill Duggar and perhaps all of the survivors of Bill Gothard who kind of came forward and were willing to talk about their experiences, and I certainly felt like the documentary was trying to portray them as the heroes for their courage and coming out. Yeah, courage especially when a lot of times criticizing that was criticizing your family, right, and so I think that was had to be difficult. Even if you didn't do it explicitly, they're the ones bringing you up in this situation.
Speaker 1:So, yes, And I was trying to put myself into their shoes as well, thinking about if you had just been brought up in this your whole life, even if mentally you have decided to break from this, just the the emotionality, all of your relationships have been entrenched into this subculture. So I'm just thinking of the step that they were taking and coming out the way that they were. I thought was was heroic. And then final question for our game show here What is the core message of the documentary? What do you think that the core point that they were trying to make in this documentary? Michael?
Speaker 4:I guess part of it just the abuse of authority that you see in in in religions and how that can really affect people, but also, i think just also the, the reality TV industry and the way that it exploits people and and creates a phony sense of reality.
Speaker 1:Both very good answers, so we'll give you the ahead of time. So so, christy, do you have anything to follow up with that?
Speaker 3:I really don't. Those were great. I hadn't really thought about the reality TV industry and I almost and perhaps it's because they didn't have like anybody from Discovery actually come on and say and I don't even know if Discovery has ever said wow, we should have done more before we carried this on for so long. But they might owe some apologies as well.
Speaker 1:Great. Well, thank you all. So much for playing rapid fire. All right, let's go ahead and start off by just talking about the original show, which I don't know when it started at 15 kids and counting or 16. But anyway, I remember it mostly as 19 kids and counting. Did either of you watch the Duggars on TV? I didn't watch it.
Speaker 4:I'd heard about it, but it just didn't appeal to me.
Speaker 1:So, you're aware of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was aware of it too, but I'd never watched it. I was always like, wow, that's unusual number of children. But yeah, that was it.
Speaker 1:I sense you probably didn't say it that passively objectively.
Speaker 3:My great-grandmother. She was the youngest of 15. But that was a different generation. They were Catholic. But yeah, 19 is unusual today. I think.
Speaker 1:Indeed, I did watch it a decent amount because my wife, Ingrid, really loved the show. She really enjoyed it. There were parts of their life that she really liked and appreciated, and the focus on the family, the happiness that was exuded in the show and just the sense of calm and order that the show projects. I mean, who doesn't want?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah no, I can see that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so she really did enjoy it. And watching this documentary, and prior even to the documentary, it has crossed my mind many times if she were alive, how would she be reacting to all of this? And I am curious about how the core audience has reacted And I haven't done research on that to see it But whether they feel betrayed by the Duggers themselves or whether they feel like it was a hatchet job, you seem to be, And this was just after I watched the documentary I was looking to see OK, are there other podcasts out there doing this?
Speaker 3:And there is a podcast out there called Digging the Duggers or Digging Up the Duggers, where.
Speaker 1:Citation There we go.
Speaker 3:And it's a husband and wife team where the wife did watch it all the way growing up. The husband never did, and so now they are watching it together and they deconstruct kind of every episode and do a deep dive, and so I have only listened to a couple of episodes, so it's very interesting.
Speaker 1:That sounds very cool. I think that's one of the messages of the documentary is that it's called Shiny, happy People, which I didn't know until last night. That's an R-E-M song and where that came from. But to portray such a sense of order and happiness and even amidst this large of a family and then to see what was going on behind the scenes and to see sort of where a lot of the ideology came from, i remember when I watched it originally, i enjoyed watching it with my wife, but there was always a sense of that this is antiseptic, that this is cleaned up.
Speaker 1:And even if this is not, even if it is reality, there's an inauthenticity for some reason behind the way they're living this life in terms of how sheltered it is. So there was a kind of respect for living up their faith, living up their commitments, but there was also this sense of that the insular nature of the family had dangers but also just did not seem like a good way to live. I would not want to raise my children in that way, even though I'll also go ahead and say that we did homeschool our children for a year And I enjoyed parts of that, and anyway that's a whole nother topic. Maybe you have another story for another time.
Speaker 3:Well, i mean, i would just throw in there that. So I was looking at Bill Gotherd because since the Duggers were really kind of following his homeschool curriculum but he was also very much about home birth and home church and home business And so even people like one of my neighbors years ago she homeschooled her kids but they were also a member of a big church And so there were other interactions outside of the family.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and I mentioned this to my children that I was going to mention that they were homeschooled, and my daughter perceptively said, but my sense was it was never for religious reasons, it wasn't for the motivations that were behind the Duggers, and I thought that was a very good point. And we've mentioned Bill Gotherd a few times And this is something that doesn't come out on the TV shows themselves. Is that the way that the Duggers are living their lives is very much grounded in this paratroop organization. What's the exact name of it? Institute in Basic Life Principles, basic Life Principles? yes, the IBLP And this organization. Let's just go ahead and just state some of the things that we remember them talking about. The big thing is the umbrella of authority. Right That there are these spheres of authority, that God is the authority, followed by men. The husband is the next authority Underneath that authority. That umbrella of authority is the wife and then the children, but it was a very hierarchical and very clear structure That was, i mean the hierarchy struck me.
Speaker 4:But the other thing is, there was a sense in which, if you follow this, if you really have the umbrella going, everything's going to be fine. Nothing bad will happen to your family, and that just seems to me that can't be right. But there is that sense that if something goes bad, it's because you weren't There was your umbrella was. There's a hole right, there was a hole in the umbrella and it's your fault.
Speaker 1:Or that you stepped outside the umbrella, and so you're getting rained out And that in itself seems very abusive.
Speaker 4:It's like blaming people for some kind of messing up in life. That.
Speaker 1:Yeah, any misfortune you're having is because you have done something wrong to step outside of the authority.
Speaker 4:That's not biblical. That's not even Christian, i would think. But anyway, we don't have to get into that, but we can get into that. So that was one thing that struck me is very off-putting about the Bill Gothard system.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that is correct, that it did seem like Bill Gothard. He wasn't a minister, he wasn't a I don't know what was he.
Speaker 1:He was trained at Whedon College, which is a very prestigious Christian college, evangelical Christian college and his father was a pastor. But this is something that I think about a lot, not just from this documentary, but this has probably been one of the hounding things in my mind just where does religious authority come from? And, as far as I could tell, bill Gothard's came from him saying I am an authority on the family, even though, as they mentioned a few times in the documentary, he himself was never married, he himself never had children. But he was this very and we're talking about millions of people having been exposed to his institute.
Speaker 3:And I think that's part of what when some of the people who'd gone through his system were in the documentary talked about, like when they go back and they look at some of the literature that is not really connected to biblical principles, or at least it's not connected in a context way. Right, some of these things are pulled out of context and then used for whatever Bill Gothard wanted to use them for.
Speaker 1:If you're having to pull out a proverb that has no context around it, and then here's what this means for us in contemporary life. Yeah, absolutely So emphasis on authority. Also, you were talking off camera, christy, about very insular nature of how things are set up. You homeschool your children.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, that you might you give home birth. In fact they had a what they showed Josh Stugger's wife giving birth at home. You might home church, you might have a home business. That, yeah, you go to these conventions for connection, but they're conventions with other people who are buying into Bill Gothard's teachings.
Speaker 4:So it does seem like there's a connection with things happening elsewhere in the Christian world church world, right. I'm thinking of, like Rod Dreyer's book, the Benedictine option. So he was Catholic but now he's Orthodox, i think, and his idea is that, well, the world is so messed up, america is like so corrupt, that to be a Christian today you have to separate yourself completely. So the Benedict option is living like St Benedict, like a monk, walled off in your own community with your own church, your own school and everything. And I mean, I don't think there's a direct connection between the two, but it seems like the spirit of the times is reflected in both Gothard and in Dreyer and some other people right now.
Speaker 1:But in a way there's a very strong connection there. For the first half of the 20th century evangelicals were very much isolated. You don't get involved in politics, that's worldly. They had their own pair of church organizations, they had their own, not only their own churches, but they had their own Bible schools. They had their own. I'm trying to think of other examples, but they just didn't get involved with worldly life.
Speaker 1:And then somewhere in the 50s maybe you start seeing this a little bit with Billy Graham, but you especially ironically start seeing this with Jimmy Carter running for president. He's an evangelical Christian and it gets evangelicals motivated and get them involved in voting for the first time in great numbers. But then they very quickly turn on Jimmy Carter in 76. And so by 1980, you have the moral majority And since that time you have evangelical Christians very involved in the political world and getting outside of their little subculture and making more of a presence. And this documentary touches on that as well, that it's not necessarily directly connected to Bill Gotherd's institutes, but the evangelical circles getting involved in political movements in greater and greater numbers, and conservative political movements at that.
Speaker 3:I did see some suggestion that perhaps it was that there is a little bit of a connection in that the homeschool movement had to fight some states who are trying to say, hey, this isn't legal or you can only do it If you have a certain certification, and try and fight for their ability to homeschool their children does bring them out from that kind of insularity a little bit, and so that might be a connection there.
Speaker 1:So we've got the authority part, the teachings on authority. We have very rigid gender roles that God has created us for very particular reasons, in very particular ways, and again you're outside the umbrella of God's authority or your husband's authority if you break that mold in any particular way. What were some of the more striking things you thought about? the gender expectations?
Speaker 3:Well, I did think the modesty kind of the having to dress in a certain modest way so that you aren't tempting the men that you meet, So yeah, so I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1:And we're not talking like Thong Bikinis here. We're talking about slits in the dresses that reveal the calf. Yeah, I went on that.
Speaker 4:That's overly revealing They actually have these little drawings to show you the ways in which, subtle ways in which the way a woman is dressed could cause you to stumble. It could be, just yeah, just like A shoulder. Yeah, that's it, just a little bit of the shoulder showing.
Speaker 1:They refer to these as eye traps. Eye traps. That's the term I was trying to remember I remember this was probably 15, 20 years ago now but Pensacola Christian College, there was an article that I would share with my students in my sociology of religion class And Pensacola Christian College very conservative as well but you were not even allowed to look at the opposite sex to flirty, or else they called it ocular intercourse.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean it looked like by anything in your clothing that would distract you from the face of the person, like looking directly at the person's face would be an eye trap. Yeah, Yes. It could be jewelry that could be thing.
Speaker 1:That too, yeah, so the dress is very much. I don't know what the purpose behind the collars are, but that's just very large.
Speaker 4:Listen, the collar is pointing down right. So these angular. So if you have your like, anything that's pointing down or up.
Speaker 3:From your face.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's pointing away from your face.
Speaker 3:Okay So.
Speaker 4:I think that's the Oh. I went on their website. So David French, who is an evangelical Christian and writes op-ed for the New York Times, had an article, a very interesting essay, about it. I think it was yesterday or the day before, and he linked to the authored website, and that's where I learned about the eye traps and about the angularity, too, That anything in your dress that points away from the person's face is a trap.
Speaker 1:Interesting, even to the point of you have to speak in very gentle voices. There's an expectation of smiling And there's an expectation of affirming your husband in almost any decision or any choice, and I guess this is a good time to say that this is certainly not the way of all conservative Christians and all evangelical Christians. This is much more along a fundamentalist kind of approach. Nancy Amerman Oh, i get to do a citation Citation. I think it was in her book Baptist Battles or it may have been in an article.
Speaker 1:She was writing about Baptist Battles, talking about an interview that she did, and this was many years ago, this is probably close to 30 years ago now. But she sat down with Southern Baptist Christians and said now, do you agree with the statement that the husband is the head of the household? And they both shook their head Yes, absolutely, they did. And said, oh, so when you go on vacation, the husband decides no, we sit down and we talk about it together and we figure it out And said, oh, but when you're making a major purchase, like a car, the husband decides no, he might have the final say, but we discuss it. She goes over and over. They were doing something very egalitarian, very cooperative, but their mindset was still, their understanding was still very much that the husband was in charge, even though if you sat then actually watched how they lived life, it was much more egalitarian. You don't get that sense in this episode or this documentary at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't see. although I don't think Jim Bob is presented in, at least they are not show any of him being in any way verbally or abusive in any way, or yeah.
Speaker 1:And they don't suggest it in any way other than the his ambition, and they do show that he was abusive in the sense that getting his children's permission without getting their children's permission and all the funds going to him even when he has adult children.
Speaker 1:I found that to be a very interesting aspect to this whole thing, that there it was clear he's the husband, he's in charge, he gets the money, he gets to control the funds, even when his children were adults, which is also again to these very strict gender roles, shifting over to just the understanding of children. First of all, you have to have a lot of them, so quiverful, but you also are responsible as the husband and as the father. You're responsible for your child until the day of marriage, and so there is not a single day in the life of a woman in which there is not a man who has authority over her, and I thought that was one of the things that caused me the greatest pause when I was watching this, and I had never really thought of it in that that intentionally set up and taught in a way that a woman will never be independent of a man's authority.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it very much goes back to. I mean, it's even kind of worse than colonial days for women. Because there you are, it was called a femme quiver. Once you married and you became under the, you kind of lose all your legal, any type of legal standing you have because you're part of this marriage partnership and he speaks for that partnership. But if a woman I should say almost everybody married. But if a woman didn't marry right, she remanded a femme soul, she did have some legal standing in the world And under this you don't even have that right. So even adult daughters, you are still under the authority of your father.
Speaker 1:So Yeah And I think I'm going to back a little bit here just how frustrated my wife would be when we'd get stuff from our college. We both graduated from the same college and it would say Mr and Mrs Edwin Dale McConkey, And she goes no Right By the way. I won the Valetorian Award. I am independent of this marriage, and so I thought that, even though she was very traditional in many ways regarding marriage, when it came to just erasing her name from male, she thought that is a little inappropriate.
Speaker 4:Well about voting. I've heard that has become an issue among at least certain fringe evangelical fundamentalists, that women should not be allowed to vote, that it should be a family vote instead. I have not heard this. Yeah, apparently, i mean. I don't know how many people support this, but I've read at least a few people who have advocated for it.
Speaker 1:It would fit with this typical genre, in this particular understanding of faith The idea that your family is in charge, your husband is in charge of everything, and we talked about the woman being under the authority of the husband, i mean, and under the authority of the father.
Speaker 1:Even when it came to dating, this subculture doesn't this Bill Godford kind of way of doing things? there really isn't any kind of just casual dating. It's if you are with a person, it is the idea of courtship that you are thinking about possibly marrying this person. And I found this to be fascinating as well, that the understanding is, if someone comes for courtship and the father says, yes, you can court, then all of a sudden you have to in your mind be thinking this must be God's will. Yeah, if this person has come into my life and my father has said yes, i have to start thinking in terms of even if I don't like this person, even if this person has done abusive things to me, i must be thinking about this wrong, because this is who God has placed in my path.
Speaker 4:One of the commentators on this said that this is just arranged marriage, that this is what they're essentially doing or what they want.
Speaker 3:Yes, And it does like really limit I think well, obviously women's options. But it even makes you like feel guilty if you feel like there's maybe problems but because, well, god and my father and my dad would not have put this person in my path if there wasn't a plan for me. So something is wrong with me, not with the situation.
Speaker 1:Now, have you all ever run into students who have been experienced or been part of this subculture? I ask because when I talk about arranged marriages versus romantic love marriages in my intro courses and where those happen and why they happen, i will ask has anybody been, or has anybody expected to be, in an arranged marriage? And when I first came to Barrie for a good five, 10 years, when I first came, i would have three, four students very often say I will get to have some input. But my parents are involved in the process And they called it courtship, that there was an evangelical movement in the 90s that was probably beyond just fundamentalism but into more evangelical circles or the kind of students that we had here at Barrie College. That it was not unusual for me to have students who had this understanding of courtship as opposed to dating and having full autonomy and deciding who I'm married.
Speaker 4:I think that that was true when I first came here. I haven't noticed it as much lately.
Speaker 1:I haven't noticed it nearly as much as well.
Speaker 3:I've never seen that. I do have seen students or had students, or even people that my kids have grown up with, who have promised to remain virgins until marriage, or their father has given them a ring that they wear and then that's like a promise to him that they won't engage in premarital sex and things like that.
Speaker 1:The term that academics are using a lot Purity culture. Purity culture.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:I found it interesting, though, that I think they made a, someone made a, and what I was reading about the movement, about a slippery slope argument that if you don't have rigid gender roles, the next thing you get is non-binary and transgenderism. So this is just a natural logical. That's what's going to happen if we don't maintain these strict, very well-defined gender roles.
Speaker 1:Yes, i think that's. I think that's right And foundationally, and this is the way God made you And it's not just biological sex different, it is all kinds of temperament that comes with that, and the temperament just happens to be women are meek and mild and need to submit, and men are created by God to be in charge and to have authority, which is a convenient way to set a patriarchy up. Yeah Well, it's very self-serving if you're a man.
Speaker 4:This is exactly what you would want, right.
Speaker 1:Exactly. There's also an element of asceticism in one way that you know, to avoid all worldly and rather than worldly desires. I always think of asceticism as worldly pleasures and worldly desires, but here it's worldly temptations, and they're interconnected, obviously. but that the Duggars, when they really got serious about the Bill Gotherd method of faith, that they burned anything that they defined as worldly, which include anything related to Disney, which we tend to think of as pretty wholesome, but even anything Disney got burned away. Oh, i thought you were about to say something about that.
Speaker 4:So I was. but yeah, I don't want to get into Disney right now, Too hot at all Too dangerous. Well, i mean, yeah, i mean so.
Speaker 3:I'll get into it. So it does feel like that. There is a I don't know if it's emerging like Ron DeSantis is he Catholic?
Speaker 4:I don't know. I mean he may have been raised Catholic, but I don't think he's still. I've read that he might be evangelical. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean I do feel like some of the things he's engaging in does like I mean the whole controversy with Disney is not really part of it, except that there are, i think, some evangelicals who have long been worried about Disney with magic and is that satanic? and things like that, and so I do think there's it hits a even. whatever your politics, it might hit a eager ear for some people religiously.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. That's a good point, Yeah. So so they eschew anything, even Disney. the family doesn't have any TVs, and yet they themselves are TV personalities, and that they are actually using the medium. And this is something that I think evangelicals have been very clever at for much of their existence that conservative Christians have very often used the medium of the day, whether it be radio, whether it be television and now YouTube, to get their message out there. So I found it very interesting that, for as anti-media as the Duggars are, they yet use media to their advantage.
Speaker 4:It was very clear that they saw the system. You used the devil to get at the devil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3:And I mean Jim Bob Duggar was very forthright about that right That I'm doing this because I see this as a way to get these religious beliefs a wider audience, and I think I'm God is opening up this possibility for me.
Speaker 1:So And it seemed very successful that. So TLC was using them for monster ratings and raking in a lot of money, and the Duggars were able to get their message out very effectively. Something that I noticed and I don't know if this was an editing thing, but going back to a point you made at the very beginning, michael, that this doesn't sound biblical. How rarely Jesus was ever mentioned. Yeah, that they would quote scripture and, like you said, very often out of context, but there wasn't this strong connection to Jesus. They say God wants this, but there really isn't. Jesus who very often took aim at the authorities of the time, especially the religious authorities at the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, i guess I didn't really. yeah, that's true, i didn't. and why do you think? that is Why I mean Jesus is too dangerous. He's an anti-authoritarian figure.
Speaker 1:I that's how I would answer it that I think, if you really study Jesus carefully, that there's a strong anti-authoritarian or at least questioning of authority even though Jesus says I haven't come to get rid of the law, but to fulfill it that there's a strong sense of calling out, just like a prophet would calling out, those who are abusing their religious authority.
Speaker 4:It's like I forgot which. I should know this. I forgot which Flannery O'Connor story it is, but isn't there one where someone founds the Church of Christ without Christ Right? so maybe that's what this is. I'll have to look that up. No, i don't remember that.
Speaker 1:That's good Well we probably can get onto a different topic, but I want to just talk about the children a little bit more. What do you think about their parenting style? Christy, I suspect that you invoked their parenting style. You did. I wish.
Speaker 3:I knew about that blanket training. I mean, there is something like so appealing about. So I have two boys right There. One is just turned 21,. The other one is 19, and they've been good kids, but it definitely is not. I say something and they're immediate responses to obey. That has not been my experience.
Speaker 3:And so there is something really appealing about watching that and kids just doing what you tell them to. I can see where that just feels good for, and not only that. so not only is it like the day to day life, but you're also kind of saving them from the temptation of the world, which I was worried about that all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, It provides a way to protect your children, for sure from the dangers, But very much the blanket method that you were talking about is even when they were like infants with no real cognitive abilities, that you would intentionally tempt your child with a stuffed animal or stuffed animal or something off of the blanket and as your child would reach for that item as soon as their hand went past the blanket, they'd get slapped, they'd get a spank on the hand and that would teach them right from the beginning to obey and to resist temptation.
Speaker 3:And it didn't look like it was just enough to obey, but to obey happily right. You had to smile, yes, you couldn't cry or pout, and so, yeah, i could understand why you would have to give them encouragement with a rod or a spanking if it's not enough. My ex-husband used to say you can either tell me what to do or tell me how to do it, but you can't do both. And this was very much both.
Speaker 3:It was like you had to both smile and obey. right, You could not disagree, And so, yeah, I thought it was very interesting.
Speaker 4:I mean. One thing I think about is I mean, how does this connect to like original sin? I mean, in other words, yeah, by our nature we're not like that. Are they denying that there's something about the human being that will resist this kind of control And eventually it's going to? I mean, it might work for a while, but eventually it's going to.
Speaker 1:But don't you think that's exactly what they are thinking, that they are doing, that the original sin is disobedience, and so we are, when this child is at this youngest, first reaching out for a shiny item that they're interested in? we're going to take that desire for disobedience out of them right from the beginning. Now, i agree with you, that can lead to tremendous resentment and, yeah, But it's interesting.
Speaker 4:I mean theologically it's problematic because it's the idea that the parents have the ability to do this right. They can protect them from. They can protect them from their own sinfulness.
Speaker 3:Well, in which the oldest son's action show. It was impossible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some of the spanking techniques that they talked about also were horrific, truly horrific, and this was someone I believe it was connected to the Institute for Basic Life Principles, michael and Deborah Pearl, who, michael, is just truly a monster. I thought Bill Gothard was the villain, but this guy was a sub-villain And when he was talking about the techniques, he said that the technique for raising a child and the technique for raising an animal are just about the same. The same kind of negative reinforcement is what's necessary, and they call it the rod of reproof, which I know a lot of parents still use that technique. But Pearlman said, or Pearl said, that psychological terror can be even more effective in spanking, just the fear of being spanked, making sure that they are always aware. But the Duggars really tone that down. They refer to their spanking as encouragement, if you needed encouragement.
Speaker 3:And I assume they never showed them encouraging their students or their children on TV, on the show right.
Speaker 1:I would almost guarantee that I don't remember an episode of that for sure. Now I'd be curious to see if they ever talked about it, how they did it that I don't know. What does this tell us? We've gone, we're talking about their culture quite a bit, and as a sociologist, i do find it a fascinating subculture, one that I would certainly would not subscribe to, but very interesting. But if I were to ask myself the same question I asked you at the beginning, what was the major point of the show? It would be that this kind of subculture of strong patriarchal authority leads to all kinds of abuse and leads to all kinds of expressions that are inappropriate, and they show this obviously through Josh Duggar and through Bill Gothert himself. What did we think about the way that the documentary covered the abuse and the scandal For those of you who don't know Josh Duggar, it came out while the show was still on that, when Josh was in his teens and his sisters were just a little bit younger than him that he engaged in totally inappropriate touching depending on how you've got either molestation or inappropriate touching, depending on who you ask and how to phrase it.
Speaker 1:And Michael, you said that it looked like he was maybe less the villain than he was. The parents were the villain because they were the ones that really didn't seek any help. They said they took him to Gothert's Institute. He got some training there, but really they kind of explored the kind of training and teaching that he got there And it was really almost non-existent.
Speaker 4:I don't mean to say that Josh is innocent, right? Yes?
Speaker 1:And that didn't mean to imply that either.
Speaker 4:There's a sense in which the parents are in that position of authority and they covered it up and didn't do what they needed to do as parents to protect the other children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was far more of a cover-up than anything.
Speaker 3:I think, especially if it started when he was 12 to 15, what is? I assume there are programs that can deal with that specifically and the fact that they bring him home out, even out of Gothert's program early, because they don't want to have to explain to Discovery why he's not there, It just suggests that they're not looking at what's either in his best interest or their daughter's best interest, and so I did find that really troubling.
Speaker 1:Not only Josh but then also Gothert himself was accused of doing all kinds of sexually inappropriate things with women, And it turns out that I think 10 women end up filing suit, and even though the suit did not go forward, the counter suit the judge, says that no, these claims are very credible, And so they took that as at least somewhat a victory of a judge acknowledging that their testimony had some veracity to it. It just showed again shiny, happy people on the outside, but there's this facade, that there's all kinds of darkness going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 3:And I do think I mean so. The Catholic Church went through its own sexual abuse scandals over the last few decades And there is something about kind of these religious authorities who might abuse their positions and by making it public, are you harming all of Christianity, all Christians, or are you doing good because you're protecting or shining light on these abusers who need to be dealt with? And I think there is some controversy around that Is this I'm sure there are people who wonder is this good or is it going to make a lot of people leave the church because they are bringing a light to some of this bad behavior?
Speaker 1:You brought up this wonderfully, because this was kind of the last kind of area and point I wanted to explore was the media and the repercussions, and what does it mean? And I think we have an answer to your question, christy, at least a preliminary answer. I would say that you can trace this back to the 1980s, where you had all these televangelist scandals and you have these sex scandals And then the Catholic Church issue was front and center for quite a while And then you have this scandal. That's been going on for close to a decade now And I don't think it's a terrible coincidence that from the exposures in the 90s to now we have seen a significant drop off. There are many other factors that come into play, but I do think people are leaving the church and saying well, if this is going on among these religious authorities, what is really being offered here? What is true and sincere here, if such atrocities can be happening to children? So I do think people are leaving the faith over issues like this and insincerity.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, i definitely think that's true that the numbers, in terms of the numbers of people who state that they're Christian or still believers, that it's lower than it's been in a while, and this has to play a role, Although sometimes when I look at the numbers I say it's kind of a miracle there still are that many given the amount Given.
Speaker 3:All the skin, all the skin. Given all the skin, all the skin.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's a miracle that 60% of Americans still say they're Christians. And actually I thought one thing. I don't mean this is mildly critical of the show shiny, happy people, but one problem. I think that the message might get across that well, this problem of abuse only occurs in like really out there, weird eccentric movements, when really it's everywhere, everywhere where this authority is being abused. So I don't mean that as like a decisive, like criticism of the show, but it kind of does sort of box up, says okay, yeah, goth third and all his people watch out for them.
Speaker 1:But if you're dealing with mainstream religion and that's not true, as we know, because all of the mainstream religions are dealing with these issues I think that is a great point, because the documentary very much wanted to make the point that this kind of culture, this kind of patriarchy, leads to this kind of abuse. And I'm not saying that it's wrong, but there are many other structures and many other forms of authority that create the conditions that allow this as well. We have other evangelical circles and you just mentioned we've already mentioned that the Catholic Church had a terrible scandal with involving not just one or two priests, but just several.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. Well, even the Me Too movement was. it wasn't based on religion, just authorities who misuse that power.
Speaker 1:That's a great point Yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's a cultural wide issue, not just a religious issue, and so I don't think you would get that, i don't think you would have that understanding from watching this documentary.
Speaker 1:So, going back to what I said, has been racking my brain for quite a while What type of authority can prevent this kind of abuse? And I don't think I'm a sociologist, so I think in terms of social structures and if you set the organization up this, if this kind of checks and balances, then you can prevent it and you might have ways to minimize it. But it seems like going back to original sin. It just seems like if people, when they have power, they will find ways to abuse it.
Speaker 4:That's really depressing, yeah, i mean I don't want to go to the other extreme of saying let's not do anything because it's going to happen no matter what. I think that there are ways that you can have within organizations, ways of keeping even authority figures accountable, and it's never going to be 100% perfect.
Speaker 4:Whether it's reporting system like an HR department or faculty evaluations, yeah, and none of those are perfect too, and there will be false accusations. There will be cases where there are abuses, even the systems they try to prevent abuse. I mean that's just the human condition, but still there's a better. I mean there's better and worse.
Speaker 3:Yeah, As opposed to kind of this if you question it, you're not just questioning the authority right above you, but you're actually questioning God. right, That seems to be perhaps the worst situation to be in.
Speaker 1:There's no options in that case Right, rather than seeing that this is a godly thing to do to question the abuse that's going on and to call out wrongdoing And maybe that's why we have always had profits right To call out the abuses that are going on in any organization, so maybe that's the need for them. Well, what have we left out? Anything else about the documentary that we haven't talked about, that we should talk about?
Speaker 4:I don't know.
Speaker 1:The fact that I'm hearing quiet tells me that probably we've covered it all.
Speaker 4:That's right. That's right.
Speaker 1:There's nothing more that we can say or anyone can say Well, i don't think that that's true, and especially I felt like I was a little off-center today. So I greatly appreciate your insights, michael and Christie, for your coming on and sharing your thoughts, and I do hope that you all will watch shiny, happy people and get a sense of the show and let me know what you think if you got my email. Thank you all for listening. I hope that we have provided you with some food for thought and that we've given you something to chew on. If you made it this far into the podcast, please consider subscribing, rating and reviewing Church Potluck wherever you are downloading it. We appreciate your support And until we gather around the table next time, this has been Church Potluck.
Speaker 1:One last thing If you're still listening, we're going to keep on recording. We'll have some leftovers, as coined by Christie Snyder herself, and so we'll talk a little later and we'll start off by you hearing me just bemoan the job I did on this episode. All right, so we're still recording, but you can take your microphones off. Microphones are headphones Headphones.
Speaker 4:You can take the microphone off. I was not wearing my microphone.
Speaker 1:So, she'll have on to all of them. I was trying to figure, even before recording. I was trying to figure out. I wasn't scared about the episode, but I just didn't feel comfortable. I don't know if it's because I'm fairly close to it. No, i'm not right.
Speaker 1:I'm not, but I'm empathetic to people who are more conservative than me and their way of life. But, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay Okay. But I didn't know why I was going to just, i just didn't feel solid about it.
Speaker 4:So I felt kind of scared, just because it's a tough thing to talk about. I have to be very difficult to talk about these things, you know, but yeah.
Speaker 3:I do think so. So you know I'm a big podcast listener. So yeah. I was looking to see what all is out there and about this, about the Duggers themselves, and I do think a lot of like homeschoolers feel like this documentary is really unfair. That like Gotherd is the and I'm not, i don't think he is, but like his system was the main homeschooling system And I don't think that's right.
Speaker 1:No, that's not right. Yeah, I mean, it really is a very. Even though millions of people have attended, it doesn't mean that he has millions of followers still And it's a. It's a niche, and it's a very conservative niche, obviously, But not not uninfluential, if that's even a word. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean part of watching it is and reading about it is. I've learned about subcultures that I'm not, i'm completely unaware of. Like Bill Gotherd, i had not heard of him before this, i didn't know his influence and all. So at least I have a better understanding of some of some of what's out there.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the articles that I read, the guy sounded like he was. He said this is a good documentary. I recommend it, even though they didn't use any real authorities to to give context, like me who had written about this quite a bit.
Speaker 1:And he goes, or Christianity today, who has supposedly written about Gotherd quite a bit, which isn't kind of the mouthpiece for evangelical Christianity, and has been critical of Gotherd and distancing themselves probably from from from the movement. But his he said that there are so many subcultures here that they kind of mixed together, but they only touched upon the others, like you know, the Joshua movement and trying to get everybody involved in politics. I thought that was interesting. We didn't talk about that. And he said that Patrick Henry College is a totally separate entity from the Institute And they're not really as interconnected as they were making it sound.
Speaker 3:Well, and they did have. Who was it? Kristin Coves-Dumay who wrote the Jesus and John Wayne book? Yeah, and so so she was an authority on there, but maybe because she was a woman, she didn't count Who wrote what you read In the first episode they did have a yeah, a few talking heads. They had a sociologist, right Yeah.
Speaker 1:A sociologist who was in favor of reality TV. I thought that was interesting, weird.
Speaker 3:So so I do have a. I did find one thing really interesting, which was there was a connection to this and to muscular Christianity in that Gotherd's dad had been leader of the Gideons And apparently the Gideons kind of were like traveling salesmen who bought into the muscular Christianity idea and like yeah, i didn't know about that And so yeah, So I was like oh, very interesting This is going to be very agist of me, But all the Gideons I know you just wouldn't think of in terms of muscular Christianity.
Speaker 4:They're 85, 90 years old.
Speaker 1:They're really old guys.
Speaker 4:Maybe they were muscular in their youth, Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1:That's why they're still around 85, 90 years old being able to pass out Bibles. But I haven't seen. maybe it's because I just don't hang around Cranard anymore, but when I was chaplain, the Gideons would call me once a year and say can we come? over and hand out our Bibles.
Speaker 4:Yeah, i have like five or six Gideon Bibles in my office just because I remember the first few years I was here they would hang out outside Cranard.
Speaker 3:I haven't seen them for a while.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's been a long time. Maybe they're all gone, i don't know.
Speaker 1:One of the things I found fascinating, one of my first exposures to religious pluralism, is when I went to a conference in Seattle and I opened my hotel drawer and right there is the Gideon's Bible, but right next to it the teachings of the Buddha.
Speaker 4:Oh wow, i thought that was very interesting. I went to when I went to a conference in Utah. they had the Book of Mormon next to the Gideon Bible And I've had that as well.
Speaker 1:I think I'm not positive, but I think most Marriott hotels because the owner Mary, I think most Marriott hotels have a Book of Mormon with the Bible also.
Speaker 4:I actually talking about Mormons. There's another reality show, sisterwise, and you know there's a connection because of fertility and having a lot of kids. It's just they're more women than the other one, so I wonder why not go, and that you know if you're interested in an equivalent. Yeah, it's very Old Testament.
Speaker 1:Ingrid, very much like Sisterwise as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, now that I did watch, and I don't know why I watched that and not the Duggers, but yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a little more drama in Sisterwise right. Yes, because there's some conflict there, There's not it didn't sound like there was a lot of conflict in the Dugger family show.
Speaker 4:They weren't all shiny, happy people at all. Not at all In Sisterwise Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we didn't say that in the actual recording, but that was an interesting point that I never really thought about that, because there's no conflict. It was kind of comfort food, right, it was just it was you just watch this happy family And even though most TV is very, you know, conflict driven, that this was just watching something that was kind of, it was kind of soothing, it was Who doesn't want an umbrella of security or whatever I mean it's, it's a.
Speaker 4:It is a very comforting idea that you can have this, you know, safe family that you know alleged, you know, at least in all appearances seems everyone is content and everyone is fulfilled.
Speaker 1:Well, our offices are next door. now, if you want me to be your umbrella, i can. Oh, can you? help me with that.
Speaker 4:I can't, i can't. You're a little authority. Yeah, definitely I need that. We need to, we need to have our own little You hear it?
Speaker 1:You hear it A Yeah right, Call me at my house when you get here, because that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, anyway, the the Barry bubble is kind of like An umbrella, that's true. Good point. Well, I'm not saying that we're like the Duggars here.
Speaker 3:I didn't mean to apply that One point. Our student code may have been Duggar like, as far as the rules, my jaw dropped when I found out we had demerits when I first got here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i was very surprised by that And I keep I feel like such an old guy because I am but going, going back to the to the past. But I got the strong sense. You know, barry kind of had a reputation when I got here being a suitcase college that students would would go back and very often because their parents expected them to to be at home. But also Barry felt like the deal that parents would strike with their children You come to this safe place for two years and get your first two years here, then we'll let you go to the big, dangerous, you know Athens and get your UGA degree Right. I don't get that sense as much anymore, although it's not a coincidence that women outnumber men at liberal arts colleges very, very much so that there's that, that protectiveness going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You want a dog.
Speaker 4:Now, dogs can give you security, especially if they're guard dogs. I mean, yeah, What do you think is think about dogs? I don't do they have a dog Yeah.
Speaker 3:Are they?
Speaker 4:opposed to it on theological grounds. Anyway, no, I don't want a dog.
Speaker 3:I know you don't Dale has not yet had the opportunity to turn down.
Speaker 1:I talked to Tina about getting a dog a little while ago, So so we'll turn the podcast off.
Speaker 3:I'll talk to you a little bit more.
Speaker 1:I don't think I really should have a dog, but I've gotten to the point where I kind of I think I like the idea of a dog more than actually having a dog itself. But we'll see.
Speaker 3:So this brings in my children's inability to obey me. So, you know, growing up I told them they couldn't. If they ever wanted a dog, they had to meet like a certain threshold of, you know, taking care of us. You know, it was basically like flush to your toilet every time after you use it, do that for like a month and I'll get you a dog. And they couldn't, they couldn't do it. And so but my youngest son there was a stray at the bowling alley and he's like, well, let me just bring it home so it doesn't get hit. I'll take it to the pound, you know, or you know pause, and you know, when you know, the next day because it was a Sunday and they weren't open, i'm like, oh, i'm fine, the dog is still at my house, and I don't know.
Speaker 1:And with a collar.
Speaker 4:I think it's too light now, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not yeah excited, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, with that, I'll go ahead and turn that off.